I have now posted the final scene of the final chapter of The Charmed Return - with the extra page that shows how I originally intended to end the book. You’ll find it if you go the the BOOKS page, click on The Faerie Path, then click on The Charmed Return. A link at the bottom of that page will take you to the missing page.
At the time, I was hopeful that the publishers might ask for one more book where I could wrap up the story of Tania and her two families and bring the series to a satisfying conclusion. Alas, that didn’t happen - the books sold well, but not quite well enough to survive the economic troubles. Publishers all over were cutting back, abandoning books and holding off on publishing anything that wasn’t almost certain to make big money, and any hope of a 7th Faerie Path book cot caught up in the austerity. (Things were so bad, as you know, that the publishers never even released The Charmed Return in paperback form - I think we should all feel really lucky that all six books exist at all!)
Anyway, this small addition will answer one of the many questions that I have been asked by readers hungry for more. The publishers asked me to take the original ending out becasue they thought it made for a too ‘downbeat’ conclusion.
I suppose I could have added a kind of epilogue chapter showing Tania and Edric’s wedding - but then I’d have run into the problem of the book being too long, and the publishers would have wanted me to cut something in the book to bring the page-count down - and I really didn’t want to do that.
It’s a shame, because I did have a few thoughts about how a 7th book would go - and I’m still hopeful that I might get the time to write a short story that will answer all your outstanding questions - or at least, most of them. But you see, I need to keep working - I make my living from writing - so I’m in a Catch 22 situation in a way. I’m always looking for new work - and that fills up my time - but I’d like to write a short Faerie story - which I currently don’t have the time to do. Tricky, but I haven’t abandoned the idea altogether.
Anyway, as I think I mentioned before, when I submitted The Immortal Realm to the publishers, it was too long for them and they asked me to cut a couple of scenes. I did so, but I still have those scenes on file. Anyone interested?